


A Billion Unnamed Undiscovered Stars

by splash_the_cat



Category: Jupiter Ascending (2015)
Genre: Astronomy, Biting, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, Fluff, Marking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-13
Updated: 2016-06-13
Packaged: 2018-07-14 20:58:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7189955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/splash_the_cat/pseuds/splash_the_cat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes Caine still finds it hard to see himself in Jupiter's future among the stars.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Billion Unnamed Undiscovered Stars

**Author's Note:**

> I'm trudging through a bigger fic and needed a fluffy palate cleanser. Also I have heard that more biting is required.

_“i will forever be colliding_  
_with a billion unnamed_  
_undiscovered stars, each of us_  
_on our own orbital paths.”_  
_― Sanober Khan, Turquoise Silence_

 

 

"We probably won't be able to see anything," Jupiter says, apologetic. "Chicago's the brightest thing in the sky for a ways."

She's been excited about this meteor shower for weeks. Caine had suggested they try watching out at Stinger's, but Jupiter didn't think she could take the telescope out without too many questions - still afraid that she can't risk sharing her secret with those she loves so dearly, still unsure of how to balance her life now with the future before her - so she'd countered with a picnic on her uncle's roof and a pile of quilts and blankets that made, Caine had to admit, the perfectly cozy nest that he's currently sprawled in.

He still thinks she'll be happier if she tells her mother, at least, and Aunt Nino, but he won't push. He knows that she'll have to make that decision when she's ready. But he doesn't think they'll be so surprised. Well, maybe about the genetic recurrence and inheriting a galaxy-spanning empire part, but that she belong among the stars? He's seen the room she shares with her mother and her aunt, has seen the corner she's carved out for herself: the posters, the astronomy books, the news articles, the paper chain of tickets from the planetarium by the lake. It's not like it's a secret to her mother or her aunt that the stars will be her destiny.

Besides, it's not like he has any standing to judge her reticence. He has his own fears of incompatibility with his new life. Watching her fiddle with the telescope - a gift given in such joy and love, a gift innocently and unknowingly connecting her future to her past - he knows she has a family that loves her.  That she has a future so blindingly bright he can only look at it and venture about its intricacies in small glimpses. She is wealthy and powerful enough to buy the stars she seeks, probably already owns one or two.

All he has to offer are his body, his life, his heart. And he knows those are enough, he does - she's spent so much time and effort these last months convincing him of that, with her words of praise and adoration, with her hands gentle and warm on his scars, with the taste of her sweat and her sweetness when she comes apart under his tongue, with her laughter and her joy when they fly.

Still, on nights like this, when he has to share her attention with the stars, he wonders if he measures up to those distant points, to that brilliant future before her when she finally steps back out among them to claim her destiny.

"I was thinking of trying to get to one of the dark sky parks. There's a place north of the city about 50 miles but it's basically just a boat launch, and you can still see Chicago." She peers into the eyepiece and makes an adjustment on the scope. "But there's a designated park in northern Michigan. Like dark sky certified and everything, and I've heard the sky is amazing in these places. They actually measure the light in the area and only places that have a completely unaltered view of the night sky get the designation. So I thought maybe it would be cool to try that. Maybe rent a bigger scope."

Jupiter pats the brass casing of her prized possession. "Not that you're not perfect," she says to the telescope, "but that way I don't have to deal with more questions. Of course, that probably means camping, which I bet your aces at, or at least the Legion equivalent, but I am a city girl and- you're brooding."

Caine snaps his gaze from her fingers where they rest along the side of the telescope to her face. The corner of her mouth twitches in a tiny smile as he huffs, "Am not."

Jupiter comes to stand over him. "You're also a terrible liar."

Caine huffs again as he catches her hand and tugs her down to the nest of blankets, into his arms. When she's nestled against him he turns her hand over, presses a kiss to the center of her palm, bites the inside of her wrist, his tongue pressed against the steady, soothing measure of her pulse.

It's almost as quick as her response to her title when he says it soft and low, the thick, heady rush of arousal that blooms when he sets his teeth to her skin. Releasing her when she starts to squirm a little, her breath short, he admires the small mark - it's not often she lets him do that where someone might see. Not that he minds the places she does let him mark.

Jupiter sticks her hands under his shirt: one warm from his grasp settling over his heart, the October-chilled fingers of the other skating along the low-slung waist of the jeans she'd picked out for him. "Tease," she says as she nips the tip of his ear. "You gonna tell me what has you all broody?"

"Maybe later." Caine pushes her jacket off her shoulders, tugs the collar of her shirt away, tips her chin up to expose the long line of her throat, the steady thrum of her pulse there.

"If you're trying to distract me," her voice catches hard and her fingers dip under the waistband of his pants. "It's working."

Caine answers by setting his teeth right over the warm beat. She pulls one hand free and cups the back of his head, holding him in place, keeping the sharp bite of his canines pressed against her soft skin. It's going to leave a mark; she's _making_ him mark her, he realizes and groans. The scent of her arousal is almost overwhelming, but that isn't what makes him dizzy - it's the trust she bestows upon him, to put herself at his mercy, knowing what he's done, what he's capable of, like she knows what he fears, and gifts him with this remarkable, tangible reassurance that she is here, that she is his and he hers, and everything will be all right.

Caine licks at the mark, kisses it, murmurs, "Thank you," against it. "But you're going to miss your meteo -Ah!"

She's popped the button on his jeans, dragging down the zipper as she scrapes her nails down the length of denim over his cock. "It'll be there a while. We have time." And her smile when she leans up to kiss him is as bright as her future, _their_ future, and he gives himself to it, to her.

He still looks over his shoulder from time to time waiting for something to appear to take all this from him, to cast him, like Titus had, into the void, amongst the cold light of the stars. But here with her, the starlight is anything but cold.


End file.
